The history of Indian comics goes back roughly half a century or a little more than that. Arguably, that history begins with Chandmama, an early children’s magazine founded in 1947 that contained comics in a small section. As a children’s magazine, Chandmama was  dedicated to educational stories, games, quizzes and other fun activities. It also included a small section called Picture Stories. The format of these picture stories differed in some ways from a conventional comic book, but they did include  panels, images and text.
 

Figure 1. Chandamama and its table of contents.

The next major development in Indian comics occurred in Indrajal Comics, founded by the Times of India group, Bennett Coleman & Co. At first, Indrajal only published foreign characters, such as The Phantom, created by Lee Falk, an American writer, which appeared in the first 32 issues. The Phantom led the way for other foreign characters such Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon and Garth.

However, in 1964 Indrajal Comics came up with an original Indian comic character known as Bahadur. These stories were in the truest sense Indian. The character was published in English as a way of reaching a larger readership; in 1966, it was translated into Bengali, and other regional languages followed.
 

Figure 2. The Phantom, Mandrake and Flash Gordon published by Indrajal comics

When Indrajal’s last issue was published in 1990, the rights to it’s most popular character, ‘The Phantom’ were taken by Diamond Comics. Even hough Diamond Comics also started publishing some of the popular and original characters like Chacha Chowdhary, Pinki, Billoo.

Another important publication was Amar Chitra Katha or ACK, which began publication in 1967. ACK was an educational comic, launched to promote Indian mythology and history to children, and as such it was often used in schools. INitially ACK was published in Kannada language. Later on, to attract a wider readership, it was published in Hindi and other regional languages. Its popularity was such that it was occasionally endorsed by national leaders. In September 2006, a survey found that ACK accounted for almost 30% of the the indigenous comics market in India. Today it remains one of the great successes of Indian comics publishing, with more than 400 titles and a large readership.
 

Figure 3.Indrajal Comics, Amar Chitra Katha, Diamond Comics and Raj Comics

 
While ACK was primarily concerned with spreading education through its comic books, in 1986, Raj Comics launched a range of superheroes modeled on Western superhero tropes. It created heroes with Indian origins and their adventures mostly took place in different parts of India. After the introduction of few characters like Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruv, the readership started to ascend significantly. Soon enough, other characters were introduced and a league of Indian superheroes were created. Among some of the popular superheroes (and superheroines) are: Nagraj, Dhruv, Doga, Parmanu, Shakti, Bhokal, Bheriya, Tiranga, Inspector Steel, Anthony, Super Indian and Shaktimaan.

Raj comics were initially published in Hindi, as it was targeted at Northern India. But, over the years it has spread its readership throughout the subcontinent. Still, the majority of Raj comics titles are in Hindi, though limited digital editions may be found in Bhojpuri, Nepali, Bengali and English languages.
 

Figure 4. The Superhero league of Raj Comics

 
These five veterans: Chandamama, Indrajal Comics, Diamond Comics, Amar Chitra Katha and Raj Comics, paved the way for the modern comics publishers in India. They helped define the comics culture in India and also established comics as an exciting form of storytelling and entertainment.

With so many different characters among the titles, I thought it would be interesting to find out about the popularity of some of the superheroes of Indian comics. So I conducted a survey in Assam, India during my PhD. research. The results were surprising. The most popular character according to Indian comics fans was Chacha Chowdhary (Diamond Comics).

Now, people familiar with Chacha Chowdhary knows that he is not a superhero. Rather he is a common man with daily life hassles like any other old person in India. The reason for his mass popularity lies exactly in this fact. His witty approach to problems is what attracted the readers most.
 

Figure 5. Popularity Analysis of Indian Comics Characters

 
The popularity of Chowdhary shows that Indian comics retain a unique perspective, established by the veteran publishers who first established comics in India.